


Bailly

by yellowbound



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cassian has a competency kink, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowbound/pseuds/yellowbound
Summary: Cassian needs a break from his regular job as a spy/assassin. He takes up dog walking. Set in modern day New York.It was, Cassian discovered, much easier to kill people than it was to walk their dogs.





	1. Cassian

**Author's Note:**

> I saw an image set of someone with a dog - it wasn't even Diego Luna, but it looked like him - and this is what happened.

It was, Cassian discovered, much easier to kill people than it was to walk their dogs.

People were predictable. They got their coffee at 7:30, their metro at 7:40, and were at work by 8:30. They would take breaks at the same time, walk in the same places, eat lunch at familiar restaurants, hang out with the same people.

While it was generally predictable that a dog would see a squirrel and run after it, Cassian had no way of predicting when a squirrel would appear, how many dogs would chase it, how many other dogs would yelp in confusion, or if a dog would just flop over from the stress and excitement.

It also didn’t pay enough to live in New York, but then he had plenty of money from his former job.

Cassian was kind of upset that he didn’t take up dog walking when he was still working as a spy/assassin. People left all kinds of things out in the open in their apartments, and his old training meant he picked up a lot of information whether he wanted to or not. It would’ve been a good way to get intel on targets.

He was picking up quite a bit about the newest person to hire him. A client had moved out of his area, so he had an opening, and the dog, possibly the laziest animal Cassian had ever met, was highly appealing.

The first thing he learned about the dog’s owner was that she was a cat person. She had found this dog (the dog had found her) eating something she hadn’t wanted to identify in an ally. She had been determined to take it to a shelter, but it spent one night with her and was not going to a shelter. She was busy during the day and felt bad for the dog, so she hired a dog walker.

The dog didn’t really need a walker. He was perfectly willing to lay around the house all day and do nothing. Cassian was tempted to just stay in the apartment with the dog and pet it, but he was being paid to walk the animal, so he would drag the dog to a nearby location where they could sit in peace. This dog did not chase squirrels, react to other dogs chasing squirrels, or have unnecessary hysterics. Cassian was pretty sure the dog judged other dogs for it, though.

The second thing Cassian learned about the dog’s owner is that she had a strained relationship with her parents. It did not seem anything out of the ordinary - their ideals were not her ideals, their goals for her she found distasteful.

They did not like that she had gotten a dog on a whim (they did not like that she had whims).

They did not like that she had hired someone to walk the dog during the day.

Cassian found this out when he opened the door one day the second week he had worked for her and her father was sitting on her couch.

“I don’t understand the point of you.” _Nice to meet you, too_ , thought Cassian.

“I am here to walk the dog.”

They both looked at the animal, lying in a patch of sun, looking back and forth, hoping one of them would come pet it, as it wagged (barely) its tail on the ground.

“The dog doesn’t need walking! It doesn’t even move!”

“It is not my job to judge the dog.”

“No, you just go sit on a park bench somewhere, and take my daughter’s money.”

Cassian shrugged. He did exactly that. He was pretty sure she knew it, too. After all, it was her dog. “Do you want to come?”

The man frown. At first, Cassian thought he was going to say no - he was pretty sure the man also thought he was going to say no, when he surprised everyone in the room, including probably the dog, by saying yes.

Cassian took the man to a spot he quite liked. It was further than the dog cared for, but honestly so was down the stairs. Cassian wasn’t sure why he was doing this, but he didn’t think someone who took in a dog like this and cared enough for it to pay for someone to essentially come sit with it during the day was a bad person, and he also didn’t think a man who cared enough about his daughter to check out the questionable dog walker was a bad person, either. He was more disturbed by all the people who didn’t check him out, just left him a key their house to come get their dog. Sure, he had all the proper credentials, but he had faked those, and no one had caught him yet.

He had no idea people were so relieved to find someone reliable to take out their dogs.

Sitting on the bench, the dog at their feet, leaves rustling in the gentle breeze as the sunlight filtered down from the skyscrapers, the busy city only feet away but hidden, the man decided to make small talk. Only fair, thought Cassian.

“What made you get into dog walking?”

“I needed a change of pace.”

The man did not react to the dad pun. “Does it pay well?”

Cassian shrugged. It didn’t, but he didn’t care. “Enough.”

“What made you take my daughter as a client?”

“I had an opening. And I like her dog.”

“And my daughter?”

“What about her?”

“Do you like her?”

“She took in a dog like this, so…” Cassian said, casually gesturing towards the animal that had now rolled on its back. Onto their shoes.

The man frowned at the dog, and then lifted his head to frown at Cassian. Cassian could tell he didn’t quite know what to make of that statement. Turning away, to look at nothing in particular, he announced. “I should be getting back to work.”

Cassian bid him good day as the man extracted his feet from under the dog. He knew the man worked as a professor at Albert Einstein, which was quite a commute. All this, for his daughter’s dog walker.

Cassian reached down to scratch the animal’s belly, as it was busy transferring fur to his clothing. It was time for him to be moving on to other dogs, as well.

A few weeks later, he opened her apartment door to find her still there. Sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, the dog at her feet. She looked miserable.

“Hi,” he said. She stared at him, as if she had no idea who he was. Maybe she didn’t. “I’m here to walk the dog.”

She blinked. “Oh. Sorry. I, uh-” she made some half-hearted attempt to get up that reminded Cassian of her dog.

“It’s okay. I know where his leash is.”

“No, don’t worry about it, sorry, should’ve called-”

He looked her over. She looked miserable, but he sensed from something that had happened to her, she didn’t seem sick. “I’m already here,” he said gently.

For some reason, that made her defensive. “I’m still going to pay you.”

“I wasn’t concerned-” He sighed, shaking his head slightly. He shouldn’t be here. He needed to just go. “I’m sorry, I’ll just-”

“Wait,” she said, as he turned to the door. He paused, looking at her, his expression unreadable. Next to her, the dog wagged its tail slightly, which from this dog was the equivalent of a running leap to greet a person it liked. “I, um, had my data stolen from me. By a colleague at work.”

“I’m sorry.” Cassian wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. An explanation for why she was home when she shouldn’t be, maybe. She didn’t owe him that, though. It was her apartment.

She looked away from him. Cassian wasn’t sure what to do. He knew she worked for a large corporation that dealt with drug creation. It could be highly competitive and toxic. He didn’t know what to do about that, though.

She sighed and shifted slightly. “My father would be upset if he knew. ‘This is why you shouldn’t work in industry’, he’d say.” She still wasn’t looking at him. Did she know about his meeting with her dad? He hadn’t told her, but her father easily could’ve.

 _I just walk the dog_ , Cassian wanted to say. But, in this one instance, that wasn’t true.

Maybe it was never true.

“Do you want me to kill him for you?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t smiling.

“It won’t make you feel better.”

“How do you know?”

He knew because he had killed for others before, and it hadn’t made them feel better. “He’ll still get the credit.”

“But at least he won’t enjoy it.”

Cassian cocked his head to the side, a slight smile on his face. She had relaxed a bit, that was good. The dog had never moved. Cassian realized it was time for his next appointment. “I need to go.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Cassian gave her a small smile, as he quietly let himself out.


	2. Jyn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn sets out to get her stolen data back, with some help from her friends. And also her dog.

Jyn stared after him as the door closed behind him. That had been a rather nice distraction. Jyn really had forgotten to call him and cancel in her distress, but, well, she couldn’t say for sure there wasn’t some part of her that forgot on purpose. He was, um, nice to look at. And normally she didn’t get to see him, she just knew that he had been there because Bailly wasn’t besides himself with the need to go out when she got home.

She needed not to let herself get too distracted by the dog walker, though - she had to plan her revenge. Oh, she was going to get her research back. And hopefully punch the thief in the face. And/or more sensitive parts.

She still, though, need to take her dog out. Bailly wasn’t the most demanding creature - she gathered he was too grateful for being saved from the gutter to ask for anything more than a comfy bed and regular food - but he did need to be taken out on occasion.

She had already taken him out once, not long after the dog walker’s visit, but she had a long night planned for herself, and wanted to make sure the dog didn’t suffer along with her. She decided instead of a brief jaunt outside they’d do an actual, proper walk. The change of scenery would give her time to think through her plan. Besides, she didn’t get all that much fresh air in a lab.

There was a pleasant park a little ways down the street. Bailly didn’t seem all that excited when he didn’t get to go to the bathroom on the nearest patch of grass, but Jyn directed a good natured ‘buck up, old boy’ at him and he came along willingly enough.

While her dog walked next to her - much better than when she had first gotten him, when Bailly would trail behind her, and she had noticed a marked improvement in his willingness to walk with her a few weeks after she had hired the dog walker - her mind relentlessly moved over what she intended to do to get her stolen work back. Was it good enough? Would it be successful? What would her father say? Oh, please let him never find out.

Thus occupied, she was nearly upon him before she noticed him. Her dog walker, sitting on a bench, with a tiny dog on his lap.

Jyn stopped in front of him, Bailly moving to sniff at the little poof that was his current charge. “Do you ever take on dogs that actually need walking?” she asked.

A smile. “Sometimes.” He reached out to pet Bailly. The little dog seemed unperturbed by her large animal. Good for it.

Bailly took this as an invitation to lay down. Jyn frowned down at him and nudged him gently with her foot. Bailly took this as an opportunity to stretch his length out along the concrete. She thought she heard the dog walker laugh, but his expression was casually neutral when she glanced up at him. “Don’t encourage him,” she said.

He looked up at her. There was no trace of laughter on his face, but his eyes were shining. “You’re welcome to sit.”

Jyn sighed down at her dog. Well, she really didn’t feel like fighting with him about this. She sat.

“Any new developments on the data-thief front?” he asked her. His expression was still that casual neutrality, though Jyn detected interest in his voice.

“I have made plans,” she said. Maybe it would help to say it outloud. She doubted the dog walker would care one way or the other.

“What do you intend to do?”

“Break into my own workplace and steal my stuff back.”

“Would you like some company?” Jyn gave him a startled, disbelieving look. “I used to be a private investigator. I… might have some skills, that come in handy. For what you propose.”

Jyn was still eyeing him. “Miss it?”

A brief shake of his head. Definite. “No. I do miss using some of the skills I needed, though.”

“What, dog walking doesn’t require breaking and entering?”

“No, everyone gives me their keys. If I had known that, I would have taken up dog walking much earlier.”

Jyn found herself smiling. This was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He needed to be way less attractive.

She looked away from him, worrying her lip. Well, she would appreciate the company. “This isn’t- I mean, my company isn’t some high-security affair. The building does log who enters and exits, though, and I don’t want him to have some definite proof it was me. But it’s not…”

“Dangerous?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It’s a challenge. A problem to solve.” What she did for a living, basically, only her problem was now one of her colleagues stealing her work, not some drug that wouldn’t behave the way it was supposed to. “I don’t know for sure where he put what he stole from me. I have some ideas, but-”

“Do you know it’s still in the building?”

Jyn frowned. She hadn’t thought of that, that he would take the stuff out of the building. Maybe, but she thought he was probably using one of the disused rooms. Far more convenient. She shook her head slightly. “No, but I’m betting it is. The samples, at least, some of them still need to be analyzed, and they’re stored in liquid nitrogen. He wouldn’t take those out of the building.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t dangerous.” Jyn thought she saw the ghost of a smile. Was he teasing her?

“I won’t ask you to deal with it. That way you won’t blow out all the windows in the building.”

“I see how that might go against your plan of not being noticed.”

Jyn found herself smiling again. How did he keep doing this?

*

Later, much, much later, that evening she met her dog walker again, on the corner of the street where she worked. They were both dressed similarly in dark, nondescript clothing. Her data thief of a co-worker might exert himself enough to swipe her stuff, but he sure as hell wasn’t staying at work until 2 am.

Getting into the building undetected took as much effort as Jyn thought it was going to - that is to say, not much. She led the way quietly to the basement. Her company did not store anything important there, though once there had been working labs. They had all been moved up to the modern areas on higher floors.

She paused at the first locked door she came to, frowning slightly. She was pretty sure her clearance wouldn’t admit her, even if she was willing to try it. Which she wasn’t. The door wasn’t terribly secure, though - her company did not put its sensitive materials or information in the basement - and she was able to get in by taking the door off its hinges. Cassian had seemed to enjoy watching her do all of this, only stepping in to steady the newly unhinged door, making sure it didn’t make any noise.

When she got to the computer she froze, appalled. Her plan had been to simply take the hard drive, and deal with whatever security systems were in place later.

Only there wasn’t one hard drive, there were many. Too many to take.

“Is that all yours?” asked Cassian, stopping besides her.

Jyn started to shake her head no, but the thought suddenly struck her: what if it was all hers? What if he’d been stealing her data for a while, monitoring her progress, waiting until she got far enough along that he could then steal and destroy her access to her own work?

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, all I need is the most recent one.”

“The one plugged in,” Cassian suggested. Jyn agreed with his assessment.

He looked ready to go, but Jyn had one more thing she wanted to do. Quickly, she pulled out the different components of the computer, and smashed them beneath the heel of her boot. When Cassian raised a questioning eyebrow, she said muttered something about making sure he hadn’t backed anything up on his computer. What she didn’t say was that she also really wanted to smash something.

When she was done, Cassian asked, “The liquid nitrogen next?”

Jyn couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, there’s a decommissioned cold room down here, I bet he’s keeping it in there.”

Cassian helped her open the heavy door and watched her work to transfer her samples to a portable container.

“So this is the dangerous part.”

Still working, Jyn responded, “One time someone capped the container incorrectly and blew out all the windows on the third floor.” She didn’t hear any response, but she could've swore she saw him sucking on his lower lip slightly when she turned around, ready to go. She wondered what that was about, exactly.

As they made their way out of the building with the material that was rightfully hers, Jyn texted Bodhi to let him know she was ready. Bodhi was a tech who worked in her father’s lab - Jyn felt it best to keep her stuff there, where she wasn’t worried about anybody stealing it. She was worried about her father finding out, but at least her work would be safe.

"Bodhi, this is Cassian."

"The dog walker?" Bodhi blurted, before Cassian could make a proper greeting.

Jyn folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. "What has my father been telling you?"

"Um," said Bodhi nervously. "He, um, said you got a dog. And have it walked. During the day. While you work."

"And?" Jyn new there was more. With her father, there was always more. Especially when it came to his precious daughter. Things would be easier if he thought less of her.

Bodhi's nervousness increased. Jyn knew she was asking him to tell her something her father had warned him against saying.

Cassian came to his rescue. “Your father greeted me one day when I came to walk the dog.”

Jyn narrowed her eyes. “My father was waiting for you in my apartment?” And you not only survived but still wanted to walk my dog afterward? She wanted to add but did not.

"What did you do with him?" she asked instead.

"I took him on the walk with your dog."

"You took my father on a walk with my dog?" Jyn asked, incredulous. This was getting more ridiculous all the time. Why did that always happen with him? "I haven't even done that."

Cassian shrugged. "It was fine."

Jyn studied him. He seemed like it was fine.

Suddenly remembering why they were all here, which had nothing to do with the dog (well, maybe Cassian’s presence could entirely be blamed on the dog), Jyn turned back to Bodhi. "Right, getting these samples to safety," he said before she could open her mouth, quickly moved towards his waiting car. Jyn elected to ignore the way he had been gaping at her and Cassian.

Once Bodhi was gone an awkward silence descended. Well, more awkward than usual. Awkward-er, which wasn't even a real word but summed up the situation perfectly.

“I should, uh, probably get home.”

“Would you like some company?” he said it casually, like he wouldn’t be offended if she said no.

What she really wanted to do was shove him up against the nearest wall and make out with him, but, well, him accompanying her home seemed like a good idea. She hoped.

While they had worked well together, afterwards conversation seemed hard to come by. Their journey back to her apartment was punctuated by awkward silences and ineffective attempts at small talk. Jyn’s head was filled with too much - her elation at getting her work back, what she needed to do next, how was she going to deal with her father, was Bodhi all right, and Cassian - Cassian’s mere presence added a whole layer of distraction on top of everything.

He seemed on the verge of saying something when Jyn blurted “Do you want to come in?” before she could change her mind.

He regarded her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before answering, “I would like too.”

The chink of a collar and a tail wag from the couch let Jyn know that her dog had registered her presence and was welcoming her home. She couldn’t help but smile fondly, despite the fact that this was not how she had been led to believe dogs greeted their owners upon their return.

She glanced over at Cassian, and found he was smiling to. He looked at her briefly before moving his gaze to the floor, his hair spilling in front of his eyes.

Jyn reached up to tuck a strand behind his ear. His eyes were on her again and he moved further into her personal space, his hands going around her waist.

She wasn’t going to miss her chance. She shoved against his chest, at the same time bringing his head down closer to her level. He ended up with his back against the near wall, his lips on Jyn’s.

She soon discovered that the evening’s events had been just as effective at turning him on as they had her. He had no desire to go any slower than she did, but she was still struck by how gentle he could be, even when he was moving his hands quickly over her body.

Some time well into the next day, they were both awakened by a large dog laying across their bodies that were curled around each other. They started to laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Bailly' (pronounced buy-EEE) is a play on the very popular dog name Bailey. The name is from the footballer Eric Bailly.


End file.
